Tourism. Trends. Tactics. Technology.

February 13, 2019

USA Today has laid off all but a handful of its Travel section staff, essentially shuttering one of the last such features in mainstream media.

From a recent Skift obituary: "Consumers get recommendations on where to go from Facebook and Instagram while heading to TripAdvisor for reviews. Travel media has become less relevant than before because consumers don’t need travel advice from the publications they turn to for political updates and entertainment news."

January 03, 2019

For the past decade, news outlets across the land have doubled down on the old adage of "if it bleeds, it leads." In the era of Facebook, stories about crime became delectable clickbait, driving advertising revenue. Nevermind how it positioned a community on a global stage that could now read articles from anywhere in the world. And, nevermind the damage that was done to a community's image in the economic development space. Stories about crime equaled short-term revenue to the media highlighting it.

December 04, 2018

We're also big fans of Rockford IL...and were before it was cool to be. We saw the spark years before the media figured it out.

Those two forces recently collided when Arnie took a misinformed swipe at Rockford, basing his opinion on a particularly cruel and absolutely unnecessary 2013 Forbes article calling the city the third most miserable place in America. Rockford's response was masterful...but Arnie clearly hadn't seen it.

During the last presidential race, the former (and I emphasize former) CEO of CBS infamously said that Trump wasn't good for the country...but he was good for ratings. If that's true (and, sadly, I believe it to be), the next time around, the networks should embrace a third-party play.

August 13, 2018

For all the advantages the internet has brought us, the ability for the agenda-fueled among us to create web platforms that appear, to the unsophisticated, to be mainstream news sites has created a monster. One such site is read so widely in one destination that the spouse of a DMO Board Member there asked her partner why he served on that Board of "thieves." Oy!

Yet, an alternative "news source," called the Sedona Eye, has been pounding the Sedona Chamber/DMO for months...most recently with a two-part treatise from a guy that clearly has an agenda...yet a vaporous bio. The problem is...the bots pick it up and repost it as news, giving validity to a lone man's rant.

Like the kid saving starfish, I'm not sure whether I can make a difference here...but when someone misrepresents the truth, I gotta give it a try, hoping someone will listen to reason.

Like many conspiracy theorists, the author buries the reader with so much content that they assume some of it must be true. But several of the rants are not:

"I’ve checked with the major Destination Traveler Industry ranking services known as Destination Market International (sic), BrandsUSA (sic), TripSavvy, The National Tour Association and the Destination Marketing Organization International (sic). They all rank DMO’s (Destination Marketing Organizations) and CVB’s (Convention Bureaus) up through the top 100 with some of them. Most of them rank the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp as the best in the United States last year.

Not so strangely, though, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce is not ranked by any of these rating services. Yet we keep hearing Council and Staff publicly distributed superlatives about our Chamber as a great DMO to support arguments as to why our Chamber shouldn’t be required to submit itself to competitive bidding through an RFP process.

This just doesn’t add up.

Ummm...this just isn't true. There are no "Destination Traveler Industry ranking services." Destinations International and BrandUSA do not rank the efficacy of DMOs. TripSavvy is a for-profit-business that highlights destinations where their business interests lie. And, the National Tour Association represents the motorcoach industry. One would think that the author wouldn't want to be on a list designed for value-oriented consumers. And, even if they did rate destinations, they wouldn't rate Destination Marketing Organizations.

Don't believe me? Click on the links and tell me if you can find "Destination Traveler Industry Rankings."

And, by the way, almost all the ranked DMO’s and CVB’s are managed and staffed by their own city governments whom they represent. Why isn’t our City Staff capable of doing what far lesser destination traveler resort towns accomplish with fewer employees relative to our City’s size.

Again...just not true. As there are no rankings...saying that "almost all" are city staffed is patently false. According to Destinations International (the sector's trade association), less than 10% of DMOs in this country are divisions of City government. Kinda far from "almost all," don'tcha think?

And, how do we know this?

23 years of being one of the top consultancies in this space in the Americas...and the author of Destination Leadership.

June 25, 2018

The drive-by media will instantly brand you as a hotbed of all they believe is wrong with this country.

Last week, it was Duluth MN...a town Terri and I love. A town we intentionally chose as our annual Thanksgiving weekend retreat a couple years ago. I mean, hey...with stores like Electric Fetus and eateries like Zeitgeist, what's not to like?

Rolling Stone covered the Trump rally, using a stringer that should have known better (she lives a few hours away in the Twin Cities...and is now apologizing). The story, which has been edited after a virulent backlash of criticism, essentially equates Duluth's primarily white population and struggles in the post-industrial age with being "Trump Country."

Nothing could be further from the truth. As a pushback piece in City Pages said: "Duluth shot his ass down (in the election) by a two-to-one margin. For that, it should be applauded, not insulted."

That didn't stop the reporter from denigrating this progressive renaissance city. All she saw was Trump...and that means bad.

You gotta love a Mayor that punches back, however. In a Facebook post liked by over 6,000 and shared by over 3,000 (how many of yours get that kind of traction?), she nails what is so Duluth:"You saw our downtown as a place where 'every surface is covered with a thin layer of grime.' What you call grime, we call reconstruction dust and progress." Simply brilliant.

And, goes on to question why a magazine would be so dismissive of a town that produced an artist that wrote a song from which it took its name: "Isn’t your magazine named after a song by some guy? Yeah. He was born here."

I understand that this President can go wherever he pleases. But, if he selects your town, be ready.

April 16, 2018

To have a locally loved icon voice a spot promoting your DMO's website sounds like a dream come true. And, depending how much of a sense of humor you have when it comes to double-entendres, maybe not so much.

“Yes sir, you go to explorestlouis.com, they’re going to tell you about a blow job. That’s right. Artisans will appreciate the local handmade works of art at the Third Degree Glass Factory. Glass-blowing demonstrated..."

If nothing else, the media attention to the "toss-off" quote was worth every penny.

April 12, 2018

What's happened this week in Myrtle Beach will likely be remembered as the moment in time when community leaders there decided that it was time, once again, to lead.

Indeed, it was community leadership (both public and private) that set the tone and the table for Myrtle Beach to become one of the premier destinations in the country over the past 30 years. And then, not unlike in other communities across the nation, they suffered silently as the media and agenda-fueled wingnuts took potshot after potshot at them.

Old school public and community relations wonks told all of us to "turn the other cheek;" that, by engaging in a tit-for-tat confrontation in front of an audience that doesn't understand the nuance of community development, you do nothing more than fuel the fire and keep the issue alive. Nothing could be further from the truth. We'll go deeper on this concept in next week's edition of the Z-News (if you're not already a subscriber, you can join our family HERE).

To recap the story: On Tuesday, the City approved a 10-year extension of a penny sales tax that has provided an 82% property tax rebate to residents and powered the region's tourism industry and job growth to record heights. The approval came after the Mayor's rejection of a call from a small minority (less than 400 people signed an online petition) for the question to be put to referendum.

Timed to coincide with this week's vote, a disgruntled ex-Chamber member brought a lawsuit against the Chamber of Commerce (which holds the Destination Marketing contract with the City) alleging misuse of tax revenues and "cronyism." Naturally, the media jumps all over the story, splattering the Chamber and several of its local contractors with incendiary innuendo.

And then, the Chamber Board did something totally out-of-character for a body that had been proud of its ability to turn the other cheek...it pushed back. Hard. In a 15-minute news conference (starting at the 9:30 mark), several members of the Chamber Board punched back with the truth. If you're short on time, start at the 23:40 mark. Game on.

But, of course, the damage has been done. The community can't un-hear these allegations. But, the free pass to slander community leaders that Chamber and City critics have enjoyed for the past few years has just been revoked.

April 11, 2018

We mentioned here yesterday that the Myrtle Beach Mayor and City Council stood up to public and editorial criticism this week by extending a penny sales tax without hiding behind a Referendum. The Mayor and Council did what they were elected to do...govern in the best interests of the citizenry. And, for those too unsophisticated (or agenda-laden) to understand why this was such a powerfully positive move by elected officials, let me fill in the gaps.

A decade ago, as the economy was heading over the cliff, the City of Myrtle Beach enacted a penny sales tax that invested 80% of the revenue into increased destination marketing while giving residents an 82% rebate on their property taxes. The increase in destination marketing resources resulted in Myrtle Beach scoring record levels of visitation (even during the Recession). The beauty of the property tax rebate is sorta self-explanatory.

Except when it isn't. Except when the media gives voice to those that try to position the rebate as unfairly benefiting the rich. In yesterday's story about the renewal of the penny tax, a reporter actually wrote these words:

"Because the rebate is based on a percentage of someone’s property taxes, the biggest benefits go to the wealthy. One person with a home worth nearly $9 million received a tax credit...worth $22,315.83 in 2017... According to the City, a person with a home valued at $199,000 would receive a tax credit of only $505.46."

Wait. Is the reporter attempting to infer that a person with a $199,000 house should get tens of thousands of dollars in tax credits because someone with a $9 million house does? Let's be clear, after their tax credit, the owner of the smaller house would owe something like a hundred bucks a year (thank you, Tourism). The owner of the bigger house would owe roughly $5,000. And, there's a problem here?